Foster makes more anti-NCAA statements in documentary

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Texans running back Arian Foster says the NCAA’s opposition to paying athletes is based not on morality but on a decision made decades ago by “six, seven, whatever old white guys” that ran the organization, and he says its refusal today to consider the issue of paying student-athletes is “cowardly.”

Foster is among a half-dozen former college athletes – and by far the highest-profile player – whose comments are included in “Schooled: The price of College Sports,” an 80-minute documentary produced for the entertainment channel EPIX scheduled to air Oct. 16.

Foster, in excerpts from the documentary released Friday on Sports Illustrated’s website, acknowledged that he received money while playing at the University of Tennessee from 2004 through 2009. He did not detail the source of the funds during his comments in the documentary or in comments Friday as the Texans prepared for their game Sunday at Baltimore.

He was and is, however, critical of the NCAA’s insistence that it will not pay student-athletes beyond the value of an athletic scholarship.

“I am a firm believer that an employee should get paid for his work,” he said. “And 100 percent I see student-athletes as employees. Hiding from it is just cowardly.”

As part of a segment concerning criticism of athletes like former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor and former Auburn quarterback Cam Newton who were accused of accepting or soliciting extra benefits, Foster said, “The fact that it’s normal to look at a television and hear negative comments about a kid is just backwards to me.”

He added, “Schools make millions on millions on the backs of 18-year-old kids and then you have the audacity to sanction them because those are the rules. But what are the rules? We (the NCAA) made the rules up. This isn’t a question of morality. This is a question of however many, like six, seven, whatever, old white guys made up a rule saying athletes can’t get paid, not because they’re amateurs. It’s because we don’t want to pay them. That’s it.”

Foster also said he played college football because “the NCAA is the best farm club for the NFL.”

“Schooled: The Price of College Sports” is based on the e-book “The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA” by historian Taylor Branch, who is interviewed in the documentary along with, among others, sportscasters Bob Costas and Jay Bilas, journalists Jose Nocera of The New York Times, Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated, University of Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor Harvey Perlman, former Nike consultant Sonny Vaccaro and former UCLA football players Johnathan Franklin of the Packers and Jeff Locke of the Vikings.

Also interviewed is Kent Waldrep, the former TCU running back from Alvin who was left paralyzed following a game against Alabama in 1974 and unsuccessfully sued the university for workman’s compensation after the university claimed he was recruited and played football “as a student, not an athlete.”

“When that question of student-athlete came up in court I almost started laughing, because it wasn’t the chairman of the business school that who came to my high school and took me to lunch. It was only football coaches,” he said.

EPIX is available through Dish Network, Suddenlink, Verizon FiOS and Charter Communications, among others, but is not available on DirecTV or Comcast Xfinity. It also is available via subscription online and through mobile and streaming devices.